


these things we feel

by shomarus



Category: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
Genre: Multi, character introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-11 02:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13514928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shomarus/pseuds/shomarus
Summary: Elizabeth talks to Bill. / Elizabeth writes a letter.





	1. Elizabeth talks to Bill.

**Author's Note:**

> hey im sho and im dangerously in love w/ professor marston and the wonder women. it deserves so much more recognition then what it actually got :(
> 
> im going to be writing a few more fics after this one, but im in the middle of working on three separate writing projects for three separate fandoms so it might take a lil while to get into. if you wanna talk about this movie, im @mintjuleps on tumblr! o/
> 
> bonus mode: a few references from other bits of lgbt media. if u can spot them, kudos :’)
> 
> thank you for reading!!

Elizabeth would soon rather die before she admits to Bill that she misses Olive.

She doesn’t know she she does it anymore, really. _It’s for the kids,_ she had muttered under her breath when Bill asked. It’s not that she hates Olive. It’s not that she doesn’t love her. But the world, this cruel bitch of an Earth that they live on, it’s simply not ready for the kind of love that Elizabeth has to give. Those were the things that were best left unsaid.

It wouldn’t be so hard, she wagers, if she hadn’t gotten so comfortable with the close familiarity their life had brought them. When Elizabeth could run her fingers through Olive’s hair, splay her fingers over Bill’s chest. Take delight in Olive’s soft whimpers when Elizabeth kissed her, Bill’s choked gasp with her breath on his neck. Yes, she loves the sex, but that isn’t it. It’s not even close to a quarter of it.

At some point, their bed had fit the three of them so perfectly together, and now that Olive is gone, it feels like their bed is stretched the size of a mile. It’s cold—not just their room, but the little space in Elizabeth’s heart—but nobody seems to notice. That’s fine, nobody but herself needs to know that she’s hurting.

But that doesn’t mean that Elizabeth cannot sense the pain of their family.

“You’re mad at me,” Elizabeth says, her voice small and infinite in the dark. She’s not quite sure what time it is—past midnight, she imagines. Bill could be asleep. It would be easier for her if he is. Elizabeth knows he isn’t.

The bedsheets rustle, the only thing she can hear besides Bill’s breathing and her own pounding heart. “I’m not mad.”

“Please,” she sighs. She’s getting mad again; she’s angry, and she doesn’t know why. She’s never known why, never known a goddamn thing. It’s scarier to admit that then it is to live in haughty elitism the way she’d been going on before. “I’ve never needed the lie detector to know when you’re full of shit. You’re mad.”

“And what if I am?” Bill says immediately. There’s a harsh undertone to his voice, and Elizabeth knows why it is. Because being irascible is easier than being vulnerable.

(She does it all the time.)

Her mouth makes a variety of shapes but the words die out on her lips. He’s right; why does it matter? Why does anything matter? She feels like a drowned kitten (and what a silly analogy to use, considering who she is), lost, alone and unsure how to tell apart toe from tip.

“It matters,” she begins, “because then all of this will have been for nothing.”

It’s funny how accurate she is in pinpointing Bill’s next words. “It never was for anything.” That’s when the hurt bleeds through his voice, and her heart rises to her throat and drops like a stone. “Look. I love you, Elizabeth. You’re a fierce and unyielding storm, unwilling to bend in the face of the most common denominator. But you don’t notice that’s where the problem lies.”

She says nothing. She shouldn’t have said anything. Elizabeth wants to retreat, shuffle under the covers and pray that if she goes deep enough, Bill’s voice will not reach her ears. But that is not what happens in reality. The world doesn’t stop because it’s harsh and unforgiving.

And a harsh and unforgiving world it is. Too many thoughts trail the edge of her mind. Despite herself, she begins to speak them out aloud. “If this lie we had conjured up didn’t exist… You’d have gone on to stay with Olive, wouldn’t you?” It’s not fair, she realizes. Not fair that she does this to Bill, when if someone had asked her the same question, she wouldn’t know what to say. But Elizabeth is bitter and desperate. She is angry.

“I love you both,” Bill says simply. It isn’t irritable, it isn’t quite hurt. His voice gives away how tired he truly is. Elizabeth carefully takes in the way he says it. He’s silent and she’s silent, but Bill isn’t quite done. “… You’re hurting too.”

“Maybe… Maybe you’re right.” She’ll admit this much, because for all the years they’ve known each other, Bill knows. “But what else am I supposed to do?”

Bill turns around to face Elizabeth. She can outline the soft edges of his face, reach out and touch them if she’d like. His expression is tender because he’s realized it too. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

What a question! Like asking her if she believed in God.

“Don’t make me say it,” she goes for instead, laying on her back so she can absentmindedly stare at the ceiling. Despite her words, Elizabeth ends up saying it anyways. “… Do you remember? I asked Olive what she thought I desired. An unconventional life. Yet isn’t it ironic that I’m here—clinging to the remnants of social normality? I have to keep up appearances, because it’s the only thing I can do.”

Elizabeth’s voice might be cracking. It might be thick with the promise of tears on the rise. She pauses for the tiniest of moments, hears the way her breath hitches in the air. Feels the tears and how they roll down her cheeks. She might be crying in front of Bill.

“For all my years of living,” she continues, because she’s rambling and she has so much to say but has never had the chance to say it, never _allowed_ herself the chance to say it. “I mean it when I say this, _nothing_ has been better to me than when Olive came into our lives. The missing third piece. You’re right, Bill. I love her. I love her more than I would ever care to admit, but I shouldn’t—I can’t. I can’t miss her, William. If I do, then why have I bothered in the first place? What will have been the point?”

Bill’s voice is soft as he speaks. It’s funny how that only coaxes the tears.“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”


	2. Chapter 2

The pen’s cap is chewed up, a nasty habit she had yet to kick. It was something Olive had teased her for, talking about how she could always tell which pens were Elizabeth’s because of all the thoughtful biting she’d done. The thought doesn’t make writing this letter any easier, she thinks.

“Work stuff?” Bill asks from across the room, stirring cream into his coffee with a somewhat disinterested look.

Elizabeth shrugs, “It’s something like that.”

If she pretends her original intention wasn’t to mail Olive a letter (for what purpose? Malice? Desperation? The human mind is an enigma, and Elizabeth is no exception to the rule) then it makes everything a little easier. She can’t write Olive a letter asking her to come back. Not only had Bill tried that—despite Elizabeth’s knowing that she wouldn’t—but Olive doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment. To be tossed back and forth between their cozy little arrangement and a life of her own like a wet rag, for their children to be jostled around with little room for break? That every time something inconveniences them, Elizabeth asks her to leave? No.

She is afraid of that reality. She does not want Olive to live with them again, (but she thinks that knowing that she would kill for a perfect world in which she could).

So no, she will not send the letter. But she will pour every bit of herself into it and burn it away. The thought seems silly, like something that you would only see a child do for a church program. Psychologically, she wonders if it would help. She’s unsure, she’s _been_ unsure since Olive came into her life, and Elizabeth is not happy about it.

“Sometimes I wonder if I act like a wounded animal. Because I am hurt, I am violent.” It’s a general statement thought aloud, but it catches Bill’s attention anyways. Elizabeth figures as much, for he’s been interested in the inner machinations of the human mind longer than she’s ever been. Even now, his silly Wonder Woman gig is based upon the whims of sociological brainwashing. Almost impressive.

“You aren’t exactly the violent type of person.”

“Semantics. I hurt with my words.”

Bill clicks his tongue. “Ah. Won’t even try to deny that one.” And despite herself, Elizabeth laughs. For all the pain and hurt that she has brought, that she has felt, Bill always sticks by her side. In a way, she is grateful for how persistent he is. Lord knows there’s anyone else on this Earth willing to take her shit.

She has too much pride for that.

It’s why she’s sitting here at the table feeling miserable for herself in the first place.

Elizabeth wants to say something to fill the silence, but she finds that every word that comes up to her lips dies out on her tongue. So she shifts focus and stares down at the paper. Thus far, she does not have much written on it; a simple “Dear Olive” at the top and a comma that had bled out because she’d kept the pen down on the page for too long.

The realization that this is amongst one of the stupidest, most childlike things she has ever done is heavy and has been slowly pressing against her for quite a while now. The letter or the initial sending away of Olive? A steady combination of both, perhaps. She might have smiled if her heart didn’t feel so heavy.

What would she say? What could she even say, if Olive was in front of her right now. If Olive’s eyes didn’t glare at her, indirectly cry about how Elizabeth painted her as the catalyst, the villain.

_It’s not your fault. This is the way the world works. To harm our children for the selfish sake of love? But how I long to be with you anyway. I think of a world in which, if we are at least not accepted, we are ignored. Where Bill can touch and hug you the way I long for, where you can hold me in the freeness of it all. It’s funny, is it not? Some kind of psychologist I am, studying the sciences and sticking to idealisms. Yet, and yet, and yet._

_Come home._

… No. She doesn’t want to say it, because if she says it, even in private musings to her own love-deprived mind, then… Then what? What does she have to prove? To whom must she prove it to? Elizabeth slams her pen on the table, swipes the papers away with a frustrated groan. And for a moment, it even feels nice.

“This entire idea, it’s… It’s stupid.”

Bill looks towards her, eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead. Mutely, Elizabeth buries her head in her hands. “Hm? Elizabeth,” he mumbles his words against the rim of his coffee cup, distracted and oblivious and how Elizabeth loves him for it, “something the matter?”

“I miss her.”

Her heart longs for her, to kiss her hands, her cheeks, her lips, whichever ones they may be. How Elizabeth wishes that she could ask Olive to simply wait. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re right, you’re right, and I _hate_ you because you are.”

It’s like a repeat of previous conversations, but now Elizabeth has been reduced to nothing more than tattered cloth, pulled along by the winds. She is weak, wanting and waiting.

“At least you admit it,” Bill smiles, smug and knowing. In a way, she hates him for that as well. “You can’t hide your feelings forever. Your body always betrays you.”

“I suggest you feed your overused lines to a woman who’s got the tact to pretend she’s never heard them before,” Elizabeth retorts in her best attempt to sound annoyed, though a smile peeking through hands and bowed heads betrays her. It’s charming how Bill can elicit that kind of response from her.

(She’ll wonder later, when she and Olive are reunited and William himself is no more, if Elizabeth’s deteriorating condition was truly that obvious, and if that had been the spark for his plans to get them together once more. There will be times for Elizabeth to wonder why she had denied herself Olive’s love for so long as well.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the potential for bants between elizabeth and bill are high. i love them sm and bill, as a character, is very important to me :(
> 
> might take the time to write something olive-based next, perhaps following post-canon. or maybe Olive's Heart-to-Heart With Good Ol' Bill, not quite sure yet.
> 
> thank you for reading!


End file.
